Prevalence of overweight and obesity in children aged 6–13 years—alarming increase in obesity in Cracow, Poland

This study in children aged 6–13 years (n = 1,499) was performed between October 2008 and March 2009. Height and weight measurements were taken to calculate BMI. The prevalence of overweight and obesity was determined by means of IOTF cut-offs with respect to age. Alarming is the fact that the percentage of obese children in Cracow increased dramatically from 1.04% in boys and 0.20% in girls in 1971 to 7% in boys and 3.6% in girls in 2009. In this report, a higher percentage of overweight boys was observed in rural boys (28.14%) than in urban ones (27.31%). Obesity was identified in an almost twice as high percentage of urban boys (7.78%) as in rural ones (3.52%). A higher percentage of overweight girls was registered in rural areas (16.49%) than in urban ones (16.09%). Obesity was prevailing in rural girls (4.12%) relative to their urban counterparts (3.44%). The highest number of overweight urban boys was diagnosed in the group of 12-year-olds (n = 48) and rural boys in the group of 10-year-olds (n = 39), as well as in urban girls aged 11 (n = 17) and rural girls aged 9 (n = 9). The highest number of obesity was observed in rural boys aged 12 (n = 3) and in urban boys aged 9 and 10 (n = 9 in both groups). In the group of girls, obesity prevailed in urban 9-year-olds (n = 5) and in rural 7-year-olds (n = 5). Conclusions: Overweight and obesity affect boys almost twice as frequently as girls. Obesity is twice as frequent in urban boys as in their rural peers

Socio-economic situation as the determinant of internal migration in Poland

Internal population migration flows constitute an inherent element of the market economy. Under relatively stable political conditions, the nature of internal migration is reflected in economic reasons as a result of the regional socio-economic situation. The subject of this paper was to examine relationships between socio-economic situation and internal migration phenomena in Poland. The investigation covers the period of time after Poland's accession to the EU, with two sub-periods reflect in economic cycle. Inter- and intraregional (NTS-2) migration flows were characterized by a set of migration coefficients. Their implementations were referred to the values of composite measures describing socio-economic situation of Polish regions (NTS-2) and its particular aspects

Gravity model of trade flows between European Union countries in the era of globalization

The objective of the paper is to present the impact of globalization conditions on trade flows between states. These determinants were considered as alternative factors for the physical distance between countries in the gravity model performed by Tinbergen (1962). In the traditional gravity model a value of trade exchange between any of two countries is directly proportional to the product of their GNP and inversely proportional to the distance between them. In the current global economy geographical distance between regions is not identified as a factor of preventing a trade exchange; therefore the distance measure in gravity model may be interpreted as an economic dissimilarity of cooperating countries. In the paper the international trade flows between EU members in the period of 1999-2010 were examined. Panel gravity models presented in the literature prove that the globalization factors, apart from a geographical distance, perform a significant role for increasing international trade. The impact of improving transport infrastructure was confirmed in the study